Ha Long Bay

So after chilling out for most of the day we decided to sign up to a 3 day cruise into Halong Bay. We left at 8am the following morning, everyone was given a silly hat and shoved into a bus! After about one hour we stopped at a Pottery Shop where the weekend kicked off. Beer was purchased and drank, then some Vodka was purchased as we felt we couldn't last the remaining hour on the bus without booze :D

The picnic game & name game are a lot more fun with Vodka so the hour flew by, we arrived at the port and were herded onto a skiff. The bay was covered in thick mist and as its pretty early I can't think of an appropriate adjective to describe how cool it looked. The ship appeared out of the mist, we boarded, got our briefing and headed off.

We slowly cruised through the bay and settled in with about 15 other boats near a floating village. Everyone went swimming off the boat & then kayaking. The useless guide took the kayaking as an opportunity to go into a cave & get stoned. Then it was back onto the boat for renewed boozing. I mention the guide as to Be honest the trip was badly organised, I think a lot of it was down to the guide but we had a great group of people and ended up having a brilliant time. There is no point in going into detail of the night, it was the usual, drinking games, limbo and dancing. We met some really cool people & I hope to post a video of the night pretty soon.





Saturday morning saw the group split up, the majority of us were transferred to another boat & brought to "Paradise Island", purchased and name by the hostel running the tour. The rest of the group went back to the mainland, Daniel & Alan had decided on the 2 day tour and headed back. As we headed to the island the guide finally realised he had left $1500 worth of new wake boarding equipment on the pier the day before. 26 hours to cop onto that, idiot! Needless to say his boss was not happy. The island was a mixed bag, the beach was stony and the water filthy but the view was amazing. Colm & myself went rock climbing, Col conquering his fear of heights! Some of the group went wake boarding and tubing. The rest of the day was spent hearing some great stories and playing cards. The night went pretty similar to the first night, lots of drinking games, dancing etc. The electricity was turned off and we ended up in bed very drunk by midnight!





As I mentioned in the last post my legs had started to swell, by Sunday it was a big of a joke, I could push my thumb into my leg and make an inch deep indentation. Ouch! I ended up boozing one last time that night back in Hanoi and waking up with fat legs and a swollen face. An expensive trip to the doctor following which ruled out anything serious but had me back on Antibiotics for another week. I spent the next two days lying watching dvds with my legs up.